


Obsession

by ravenslight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Diary/Journal, Fairest of The Rare's Love Fest 2020, Obsession, Post-War, Stalker, This got a bit darker than I intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenslight/pseuds/ravenslight
Summary: She saved him, in every sense of the word, and now Colin can't get her out of his head.
Relationships: Colin Creevey/Luna Lovegood (imagined), Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14
Collections: Love Fest 2020





	Obsession

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MidnightChardonnay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightChardonnay/gifts).



> This was written in response to a prompt by and as a gift for MidnightChardonnay for Fairest of the Rare's Love Fest 2020! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This fic is a bit dark, as it deals with obsession (who'd have thought based on the title, right? lol) and stalking. If that's triggering for you or not your jam, it's probably best to pass on this.
> 
> Prompt: Collin Creevey - secret obsession told through a journalistic perspective  
> #LF2020 #TeamEros

**5th May 1998**

Hogwarts smells like smoke. 

It took me a minute to recall why it would when I woke up this morning. Though, to be fair, it also took me a moment to understand why I was in the Hospital Wing, bandages wrapped tightly around my head and diagnostic charts for monitoring magical disturbances suspended midair around my bed.

Madam Pomfrey arrived shortly after I came to, the piercing, high-pitched whine of the machines alerting her to my awakening. She fluttered about the bed for several frantic moments, shining her wand tip in my eyes to determine some vital or another. After a barrage of such tests, during which she flickered her gaze at me with pursed lips as though she was afraid of spilling some horrible secret, she explained to me what happened.

Students who weren’t gravely injured were being kept at Hogwarts; apparently Mungo’s is too full to house those of us who don’t seem immediately in danger of death.

Her explanation of how I landed here isn’t altogether surprising. McGonagall sent us out of the castle, all of us who weren’t of age, but I returned to the battle—that much I remember. It was chaos, spells flying every which way, but I fought as best I could. When Voldemort announced a cease-fire, I went outside, presumably to document the destruction. After that, I remember nothing.

According to Pomfrey, I was standing near one of the towers when a _Bombarda_ destroyed it. It collapsed overtop of me, but someone stopped it from crushing me entirely with a well-placed cushioning charm. But some of the rubble still managed to pierce the charm, striking my head. Pomfrey went on to explain that it was likely that I’d suffered a traumatic brain injury—a life-altering injury that would require intensive healing even _with_ the help of magic—but I stopped listening to her.

Because I remembered.

The girl who saved me, I mean. I remembered her. 

Silvery eyes, pale blonde hair… the concern etched on her face.

Luna Lovegood saved me. She _saw_ me, in a way no one has ever seen me before. And now I owe her a life debt, but as far as I’m concerned…

We’re inextricably linked now. My mother once told me that when a soul experiences something so life-altering as to cause a life debt, the individuals will always bear that mark.

As soon as I can leave the hospital, I’m going to find her.

I have to.

**10th June 1998**

Pomfrey says I shouldn’t be awake yet. According to her, by all accounts, I should be dead. But I’m not, and I know why.

It’s Lovegood. Part of her soul called to mine when I was in that dark place and pulled me out. 

Further proof that I need to find her.

But Pomfrey won’t let me leave; she says that I still need to recover, that I’m not myself. According to her, traumatic brain injuries are relatively new diagnoses in the wizarding world, but all her research indicates that such an injury can cause dramatic changes in personality, mood swings, and obsessive tendencies. 

Apparently because I keep asking after Lovegood, she has surmised that obsessive tendencies may be part of my diagnosis.

Never mind that I need to find and thank the girl who saved my life.

But Dennis agrees with her. He visited yesterday, but he didn’t stay long. We talked about the war, about our parents, but he hasn’t been able to locate them. He says the last place they stayed is gone, burnt to the ground, but when I didn’t cry at the news, he said that something is wrong with me. He pushed and pushed and pushed, and I couldn’t handle it.

I haven’t experienced accidental magic since I was a child, but the jolt of magic that shocked him when he settled his hand on my arm to ask me to reconsider helping him find our parents can only be classified as such. 

I don’t care to find them; Lovegood is the priority at the moment.

He left in tears, but I can’t bring myself to care.

Someday, when he’s in love, he’ll understand. 

**28th June 1998**

Lavender Brown found my camera in the rubble of Gryffindor tower. She even developed the photos that I’d taken and kept safe in my trunk, before the war started. 

Lovegood is in one of them.

It’s one of many I took at the Yule Ball my third year. She’s wearing her fancy dress, smiling up at Neville Longbottom as he spins her about the dance floor in her pink tinsel dress.

I think she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen before.

When Pomfrey retired for the evening, I summoned my wand and tried to cut the photo in half, but it has become difficult to concentrate on magic. Spells have become mixed up in my mind and I can’t focus on which one is which. Pomfrey says it’s part of the injury, but it makes me mad. 

Magic isn’t supposed to be hard.

In the end, I accidentally burnt the photo. I managed to put it out in time, but the edges are still singed, obscuring a little bit of her curly hair, her radish earrings still peeking out of the photo’s curled edges where it rests in a frame I transfigured out of an old quill on my side table. 

But Longbottom is no longer in the frame, and if I concentrate hard enough, I can imagine it’s me she’s dancing with. 

**16th July 1998**

I saw her today.

Pomfrey finally let me out of the hospital bed. She finally removed the last of the bandages and helped me walk around the hospital wing. It’s a miracle I can still walk, she says, given the amount of rubble that fell on me, but I know it’s not.

It’s Lovegood.

As I walked around the room, Pomfrey at my side, I imagined all the different ways I’d thank Lovegood. Maybe I’d find her in Diagon, surprising her with a bouquet of roses or maybe a new necklace of Butterbeer cork to keep the nargles away—that was something she was always talking about. 

But then I turned the corner and she was there.

She was leaning over one of the other hospital beds, smiling and laughing and radiant, and my breath caught in my throat.

But she wasn’t there for me. She was leaning over _his_ bed, smiling at _him_. Longbottom.

He showed up a few days ago, moaning something about one of the Venomous Tentaculas biting him while helping restore the greenhouses. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but between my journal and listening to the recovery efforts going on outside the hospital wing, I don’t have much in the way of entertainment.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I hoped he’d quietly die. Less of an obstacle that way.

But he didn’t, and now she’s been to visit him. Her smile was bashful and beautiful, and it should have been aimed at me. 

But it wasn’t. 

She didn’t even see me.

When she left, I exploded a vase by my bed. 

**6th August 1998**

It feels like life is moving on without me here, but Pomfrey has promised that I’ll be released from the hospital wing in time to return to studies on first September. 

I almost didn’t bother, given the way I still can’t manage the simplest of tasks with my magic. Every day, healers from Mungo’s badger me with relentless exams to determine any improvement, but it remains the same: my magic is about as useful as a light from the stub of a candle. 

Part of me feels like it died in the battle.

Some days I wish the whole of me had died.

But then days like today happen. Days where I get to see her.

Lovegood has been volunteering with St. Mungo’s, helping survivors of the war. She flits about the place like a sprite, all smiles and chirpy voice, and just being in the same room with her makes my day better.

When she’s here, I can watch her. I can pretend as though she’s not just out of my reach. 

Today, though… today I didn’t have to pretend.

The volunteers streamed in as usual for their evening rounds, their robes crisp and clean, but Lovegood always stands out. Hair cascading over her shoulder in a silvery-blond waterfall and radishes hanging from her earlobes, she always stands out.

But then she looked at me, and I felt it.

This connection between the two of us is palpable, electrifying, and I could feel my magic jolt once, like it was awakening from a long slumber, when she smiled at me.

Making as though I was reaching for my water, I carefully laid her photo down on its front, obscuring her image as she approached, and her voice was just as melodic as I remembered.

She held my hand, helped me from my bed, and wrapped her arm carefully around my waist as she guided me around the room.

For the first time since arriving here, I felt seen. 

She talked the whole time, about everything and nothing. I was too rapt by the way she spoke to respond, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

By the time she settled me back in bed, I was breathless, but not from the exercise. To be near her is like a breath of fresh air; she sets my soul on fire in a way I’ve never experienced.

When she left, she checked me over once more, frowning down at me. “You haven’t talked much. Are you alright?” she’d asked.

I couldn’t contain the smile I gave her, answering truthfully. “Quite.”

She promised to come see me again.

It almost didn’t bother me that she stopped at Longbottom’s cot on her way out.

Almost.

**31st August 1998**

The school year begins tomorrow.

To say I’m nervous would be an understatement, but I’m ready.

Lovegood has been to the hospital wing every day over the last month, but she’s only been paired with me twice. Each time, though, it seems we grow closer.

I can never find it in me to talk much, but she fills the silence for the both of us, and I file away the knowledge she gives me.

Her favourite colour is yellow, but particularly the yellow that tinges the sunrise just before the glowing orb ascends over the horizon. She’s fascinated by magical creatures, but she’d most like to work with ancient runes, helping to uncover the secrets of magical civilisations long lost to us. 

She doesn’t talk about the war.

Each fact reveals a little bit more of her to me, and I feel like a collector of precious items.

She doesn’t expect an answer, and I rarely give her one. It’s enough to be in her presence. 

On her last visit, she asked me about my family, and I gave as succinct an answer as I could: Dennis was well, and we still have no news of my parents. A brief moment of sorrow passed over her face, and without thinking, I reached up, soothing the stress lines out of her brow.

Lovegood startled, but didn’t push me away. It was progress, I thought.

But then, after the other volunteers had left and we were to be retired for bed—me for my last stay in the hospital wing—Lovegood slipped back in, knocking on Pomfrey’s open door.

Her voice carried in the silence of the room, only occasionally punctuated by the snores or tossing of other patients. 

I wish I hadn’t listened.

She told Pomfrey she was worried about me, that I seemed obsessive, fixated on her as a coping mechanism. After a brief silence, Lovegood told the mediwitch that she was frightened of me, a notion I find insulting. Pomfrey agreed with her, telling the witch that my recovery has stagnated since the first time Lovegood helped me.

Even now, I can feel the sting of the words.

When Pomfrey suggested that Luna limit contact, I lost my temper, the row of empty potions vials lining the shelves outside of Pomfrey’s living quarters exploding in a shower of multi-coloured glass.

Even as my I pretended to sleep, my heart raced, sure they would discover it was me, but Luna attributed it to her own nervous energy, made worse by a nargle infestation.

I haven’t slept, writing this beneath my covers even as my hands shake.

She’ll return to Hogwarts tomorrow.

I need to show her that I’m the right man for her. I need to make her believe.

I _have_ to.

**3rd September 1998**

We have Potions together. 

I haven’t managed to talk to her, but she sits directly in front of me, so close I can smell her. A hint of rose and garden dirt, she’s an enticing mix of scents that draws me in. 

It’s entirely her own, and I want to lose myself in her.

Fortunately, the new potions master doesn’t keep as tight a hold on the classroom, and when he instructs us to gather ingredients, I follow Lovegood to the cabinets, hovering directly behind her.

A quick slash of my wand was all I needed to sever a lock of her hair, near the ends, small enough that she wouldn’t notice, but enough that it still contains her scent.

Some might call it crazy, but it’s a small price to pay to assuage the longing I feel for her. 

Now, a small piece of her is with me every night, tucked safely alongside the photograph of her I keep stored safely in my trunk. 

It’s only a matter of time before I can tell her how I feel; I can feel the way she’s softening toward me by the lopsided tilt of her lips she sends my way, how she can’t manage to sit still when my gaze settles on her in class.

She’s perfect, this witch of mine.

**14th September 1998**

I’ve been leaving her flowers. Simple, singular buds with a note from her secret admirer.

Some of them I’ve had delivered to her in the Great Hall during meals, others in the overstuffed chair she favours in the library.

I can see the envious looks on her friends as she receives each one, all personalised and addressing her as ‘My Love’ or ‘My Salvation.’

Because that’s what she is.

She saved me when I needed it most, and she continues to save me now. Even from afar, she is the light I need.

I can see her wavering; she knows it’s me. Each one she receives, she flickers her gaze to me, lips trembling into a small smile, as though she’s overcome with the emotion she feels between us.

Even as I write this, I can’t stop my hand from shaking. She’s so near me. My witch.

Gods, she’s perfect.

**28th September 1998**

She’s a prefect—I’m so proud of her. She walks around the hall with her badge pinned to her robes, proudly and kindly correcting those who break the rules.

I’ve made it a habit to break them myself.

The first few times were minor: staying out past curfew or failing to return a book to the library in time. Pence is notorious for making the prefects do her dirty work.

Lovegood finds me every time, but I don’t make it a point to hide. Not from her.

Her admonishments are gentle, but they root me to the spot. I live for her voice washing over me, the glimmer in her eyes as she outlines why she must take house points or give me detention with Filch.

But last night, I managed to land detention with her.

I overheard her discussing the occasion with Nott, who was supposed to oversee the trophy room cleaning I was assigned, but when he expressed disappointment at missing his date with Potter, she readily offered to cover for him.

Like she was simply waiting for an opportunity to be alone with me.

I arrived before she did, ensuring that I was cleaning the trophies to my level best, my face reflected in their shine and obscuring the dark scar that mars my forehead just below my hairline.

When she arrived, she didn’t say much other than to inform me that she was setting a timer for an hour, after which I would be permitted to leave.

But I could feel her eyes on me, nearly pinning me to the spot.

When she left, I had to rearrange myself lest she saw the effect her attention had on me.

**31st October 1998**

It’s all going to pieces, and I can’t make it stop. 

The heads of houses and the prefects arranged a Samhain ball to boost inter-house unity. I was looking forward to it. 

Luna looked beautiful. Her dress was much the same as the one she wore to the Yule ball in third year, but this one was a deep blue, silver flecks woven into the fabric that shimmered in the low light.

I’ve never seen her look more beautiful.

But then I saw who she arrived with.

Longbottom.

He’d wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight to his side, a stupid smile marring his face.

Longbottom, with his hero reputation. Longbottom, with his scarred arms from his bumbling around the greenhouses. 

He’s not good enough for her.

But they danced the night away, Longbottom scarcely letting her go long enough to fetch a drink.

It was the only chance that I had to talk to her, and even then I was only able to utter a useless greeting before Longbottom whisked her away to the dance floor again.

When the liquid in the punch bowl next to me sloshed against the sides as my hands coiled into fists, I left the ball.

I could feel her gaze on me as I walked away.

**11th November 1998**

She didn’t open my note today, sending it away with the rubbish instead.

**18th November 1998**

I left another flower for her in her favourite chair at the library, but she didn’t come.

She always studies there on Wednesdays.

When I returned my book to the shelf, scorches marked the places my fingers had grasped it.

I’m losing her.

**3rd December 1998**

I don’t understand where it all went wrong. 

The notes, the flowers, the smiles… all of it was for her.

I kissed her today. And it was everything I ever wanted. The beginnig of our forever.

I waited for her in an empty classroom in the corridor she takes as a shortcut to the library, and when she passed, I followed her and pulled her into an alcove behind one of the paintings.

It was perfect; romantic and spontaneous, just like Luna. When I pressed her against the stone, she stiffened, eyes wide and tracing my face.

There was so much emotion in her eyes. I just knew, then, that she felt it, too. The inevitability that is us.

And when I kissed her… gods, I thought I’d expire on the spot. Her lips were soft, just like I imagined they would be, and her little body tucked into mine so perfectly. She was made for me. And her little gasp against my lips…

I didn’t expect her to slap me, the silver flash of a ring on her left hand the only warning I had before her palm connected with the flesh of my cheek.

It shocked me. I didn’t expect her to react that way. We’ve been dancing around each other so long in this flirtatious game that I thought she’d melt into me.

Instead, she pulled away, eyes wide and fearful as she raced down the hall, wand held defensively in her grasp.

I’ve ruined it all.

**4th December 1998**

Headmistress McGonagall called me into her office; Lovegood reported me.

And I’ve been expelled from Hogwarts.

I’m writing this on my four-poster, though I’m supposed to be packing my belongings. An Auror is waiting for me, an official restraining notice waiting to be served, I’m sure.

McGonagall said that Lovegood has been complaining of me all year, that they’ve been keeping me under surveillance and have extracted Lovegood’s memories of our kiss. According to the Headmistress, it’s all the evidence they need to expel me.

She wouldn’t listen to my explanations that Lovegood and I are in love. The disgust on her face was clear, and she had me forcibly removed by the very Auror who is waiting for me.

I have an obsession, McGonagall says. That I’m obsessed with Luna, not in love. That Luna is in love with Longbottom, and that they’re engaged to be married. 

As much as I hate to admit it, the notion would explain the ring on her finger. 

Longbottom’s quarters are directly above mine; it wouldn’t be hard to slip in there and…

But I can’t, not now. It would look too suspicious, and it might drive her from me forever.

So I’ll pack up the rest of my things and wait. And plan. And when Longbottom is out of the way, I’ll make her see that it was me all along. And if that doesn’t work… 

If I can’t have her, no one can.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any errors are my own, as I have not had this alpha or beta read.


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